I am a Latin America focused analyst and writer. I split my time between New York City and Mexico City. I have written feature articles on business, organized crime, politics, and culture for The Atlantic, MONOCLE, Americas Quarterly, The Nation, Lapham's Quarterly, and a number of other publications. I have worked on projects along Mexico's northern border as well as in the hills of places like Jalisco, Michoacan, and Guerrero. I have a Master's degree in International Affairs from Columbia University (SIPA). In the last few years I've had the chance to work on projects in Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, India, and China. Follow me on Twitter: LatAmLENS.

Mexico has a new president. Is the War on Drugs over?

With more than 60,000 dead, Mexico may be growing tired of supporting the U.S.-led War on Drugs. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

“You know?” my friend said, in his serious, Texas drawl, “with all the violence taking place in Mexico, lately I’ve been getting angry at people for using drugs.” He set his beer down on the countertop. “Seriously,” he said, “I’ve been getting into arguments with people.” We were standing next to the pool table in a bar named “Prohibition,” an establishment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan that is licensed to serve the public alcohol, including cocktails based on recipes from the 1920s, an era when the distribution and sale of alcohol was banned in the U.S.

We were starting in on the third round of beers when our other friend returned to the table. She ordered a glass of wine. We focused on the game of pool. She told us a funny story about the new police chief in Ciudad Juarez, a place that until recently was Mexico’s most violent city. He made a name for himself by ruthlessly stamping out police corruption and openly declaring war against the drug cartels in Tijuana, another border city. In Juarez, his new post, he was welcomed to the city in a hail of gunfire as he approached the police perimeter around a crime scene, a riot at the city’s main jail. The Federal Police force, already at the jail, shot at his car when he approached. It was an accident they said. In a previous “accident” the Federal police killed one of the mayor’s body guards.

In the back corner of the bar, almost 2000 miles from Juarez, we laughed. My friend had been working in Juarez for the previous few years. “The same type of thing also happened to the ex-police chief,” she said. In Juarez, as drug cartels and local gangs battle for control of the drug trade, the police are being targeted by hit squads. The ex-police chief of another nearby city met the same fate while visiting Juarez. “He was just killed,” I said. “They shot him while he ate lunch at Applebees,” I added. We all sat silently for a minute and sipped our drinks.

It’s hard to estimate exactly how many people have been killed in Mexico during the recent outbreak of violence. Most reasonable guesses place the total at higher than 60,000. In Ciudad Juarez, more than 3,000 people were killed in 2010 alone. Shoe-shiners and parking lot attendants are shot at point blank range in broad daylight. The bodies of teenagers are found slumped on sidewalks, shot with machine guns at close range. Tortured bodies and severed heads are dumped in the street. When I visited Juarez, a young girl was shot in the leg as assailants murdered a man in the street in front of her house. The same day five young men were killed while playing soccer in a city park.

Still, in spite of the violence, the U.S. and Mexican governments have pushed forward with the “War on Drugs.” After criminals set a casino on fire in the Mexican city of Monterrey, killing over 50 people in the process, Felipe Calderon, who was then Mexico’s president, held a press conference and said, “the economic power and firepower of the criminal organizations operating in Mexico and Latin America come from this endless demand for drugs in the United States.”

When I visited Juarez, I went with an employee of Mexico’s Secretary of Economy to visit Club Kentucky, a famousprohibition-era bar not far from the Texas border. “Nice,” I told her, nodding in approval. The bar was empty. Two men looked up at us when we walked in.

November 30, 2012 is Felipe Calderon’s last day in office. On December 1, Mexico’s new president, Enrique Peña Nieto will take office. After winning the election on July 1, he has indicated that he will continue to pursue Mexico’s cartels. However, after Colorado and Washington voted to legalize marijuana, some senior politicians have started to question the logic behind the War.

Manlio Fabio Beltrones, a leader from Peña Nieto’s party in Mexico’s Congress, said “The legalization of marijuana forces us to think very hard about our strategy to combat criminal organizations, mainly because the largest consumer in the world has liberalized its laws.”

Peña Nieto’s top adviser, Luis Videgaray, said legalization “changes the rules of the game in the relationship with the United States” in regards to anti-drug efforts.

Jorge Castañe­da, Mexico’s former foreign minister, said that he thinks “more and more Mexicans will respond in a similar fashion, as we ask ourselves why are Mexican troops up in the mountains of Sinaloa and Guerrero and Durango looking for marijuana, and why are we searching for tunnels, patrolling the borders, when once this product reaches Colorado it becomes legal.”

In a recent New York Times op-ed, Alan Riding wrote “Peña Nieto’s priority is to make Mexico a safer place — for its citizens, for tourists, for businesses — and this may only be possible by conceding that narcotics trafficking will continue so long as there is a lucrative market next door.”

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.